![]() “1990x” is similarly submerged, with plops of steady and strong percussion echoing the line, “Lay here closely beside me, feel my heart as it’s pounded.” Along with lead single “Lake by the Ocean,” the perfect song for a summer wedding’s first dance, it grounds the whole album. Musically, it brings to mind Embrya, which found the singer diving deep into glistening oceans of sound, undulating bass lines, gurgling synths, with his sweetly effortless tenor floating and glinting atop. Which is why a song like “ 1990x” stands out as necessary. #Last soul on a summer night review freeAs delicate as “Hostage” is, it can skew negative when you really consider lyrics like, “I’m free inside the cage of your heart of gold/The prison of your love, it makes me so.” Heat emanates off D’Angelo not just in “Untitled (How Does It Feel)” Prince turns positively primal by the end of “The Beautiful Ones.” Maxwell is more esoteric, however, often appealing to your mind as opposed to your body. In fact, there are moments when you worry that Maxwell might lose listeners because he’s so cool. Through it all, his voice remains effortlessly calm. He juxtaposes sparkling chords with fed-up lyrics on “Gods.” His aching on “Of All Kind” contrasts with glittery synths. On *blackSUMMERS’night, *at least half of the album is drenched in sunshine. Even “Pretty Wings,” a song about a breakup, is as light and airy as any ode written to a new crush. Maxwell’s head is usually in the clouds, and his music reflects that. Still, he somehow remains miraculously open, or maybe just fated, to falling in love: As he insists on “III,” “Cupid keeps targeting me/Arrows are flying, I can’t see.” His attempts at “happily ever after” continue to serve as musical inspiration, perhaps never as heart-wrenchingly so as in “Lost,” where he observes a former lover from a distance and takes note of her growing children and doting husband. Here, that means he doesn’t shy away from vulnerability (“Feel like I’m average, the pressure’s so savage,” he sings on “The Fall”). Curiosity-the desire to dissect and examine a partnership-has always set him apart Maxwell wants to push far past the surface, almost clinically so, of any easily won emotion. #Last soul on a summer night review fullSeven years later, *blackSUMMERS’night *picks up where that left off, with Maxwell writing yet another album that explores the full spectrum of love. Urban Hang Suite is a concept album that exalted monogamy the prequel to the current album*, BLACKsummers’night, *details another emotionally complex romantic relationship. Of course, thematically sound records have always been Maxwell’s strength. With forever-sophisticated lyrics sung in his still-creamy voice over a band so tight they sound loose, *blackSUMMERS’night *is probably Maxwell’s most cohesive effort since his sublime (critics panned it they were wrong) sophomore album, *Embrya-*and the first since then with no skippable tracks, the better to soundtrack sessions of sex so exquisite and transcendental, tantric comes off as boring. Twenty years after his masterpiece of a debut, Maxwell proves he’s as chill as ever with the elegant *blackSUMMERS’night, *another collection of shimmering love songs that pushes on the limits of R&B and proudly embraces the “grown and sexy” label. ![]()
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